Libsyn Directory

People only think other people die with Andrew Quebbemann

Release Date: 07/31/2026

Risk, Resilience, and Reinvention: How to Turn Life’s “Terrible Gifts” Into Your Next Chapter With Tom LeNoble

The Story Engine Podcast

What happens when the challenges you’ve spent years trying to overcome become the very experiences that shape who you’re capable of becoming? In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with Tom LeNoble, a former executive at companies including MCI, Palm, Walmart.com, and Facebook, who has been given six months to live three separate times and has lived with metastatic cancer for the past fourteen years. Rather than allowing those diagnoses to define his life, Tom has built his philosophy around three powerful principles: risk, resilience, and reinvention. We dig into...

What If the Last 3% Is Hiding Outside Your Analytical Mind With Barry Goldstein

The Story Engine Podcast

In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with Barry Goldstein, a longtime music producer and creative collaborator who has spent more than 40 years exploring how music can magnify mission, unlock creativity, and help us move through the blocks that keep us from our next level. We dive into the idea of the “last 3%”—that frustrating gap between knowing you have something great and actually being able to fully express its potential. Barry explains why solving that final piece doesn’t necessarily require more effort, more analysis, or more information. Sometimes, it...

What If the Biggest Problems in Your Business Are Actually a Sign You’re Out of Alignment With Esther Wildenberg

The Story Engine Podcast

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about alignment—not just as a personal-growth concept, but as something that directly affects how we lead, build businesses, make decisions, and live our lives. In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with Esther Wildenberg, an executive coach, entrepreneur, consultant, and AI business owner who has spent more than 20 years helping leaders recognize when they’ve drifted out of alignment and find their way back. Esther describes alignment as the place where our purpose, passion, heart, identity, and actions are working together—and...

From “Behind Zero” to Playing a Bigger Game: How to Stop Letting Your Past Define Your Future with Markus Kaulius

The Story Engine Podcast

What if the very experiences you’ve been trying to leave behind are actually the things that qualify you to play a bigger game? In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with Markus Kaulius, a multi-exit entrepreneur, investor, author, and longtime student of personal development, to unpack the beliefs, habits, health, and faith that have shaped the man he is today. Markus grew up poor, in a broken family, and describes himself as starting “behind zero”—but instead of seeing that history as baggage, he learned to recognize it as the source of his work ethic,...

I Did Everything Right—So Why Was I So Unhappy with Melissa Marina

The Story Engine Podcast

What happens when you’ve built the successful career, hit the milestones, created the life everyone tells you that you should want—and yet, deep down, you know something is wrong? In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with Melissa Marina, a subconscious healer and intuitive channel for top entrepreneurs and founders, to explore what happens when high achievers finally stop compromising their deepest desires. Melissa shares the story of graduating with honors, winning entrepreneurship awards, landing a great corporate job, and seemingly doing everything...

When Your Business Is Thriving but Your Life Is Falling Apart With John Glon

The Story Engine Podcast

I sat down with entrepreneur and business coach John Glon for a conversation about something I’ve experienced personally—and something I see happen to so many founders: the moment when hard work, grit, and determination that once built the business start becoming the very things that hold it back. John shared his journey from running a successful electrical manufacturing business to realizing that his deeper calling was helping leaders and their teams communicate, execute, and lead better. We explored what happens when founders become the person everyone depends on, why “I’ll just...

From Nurse to Entrepreneur: How To Build A Business To Put People Before the System With Ashley Yardley

The Story Engine Podcast

What happens when you’re a nurse who deeply cares about helping people, but you realize the healthcare system doesn’t always give you the freedom—or the options—to provide the kind of care you believe people deserve? In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with Ashley Yardley, founder of Advanced Mobile IV, to unpack the personal experiences that pushed her to build a completely different model of healthcare. We talk about how her background in home health and hospice led her to see the power of bringing care directly into people’s homes and communities, and how...

Your Brain Health Problems May Be Starting Decades Earlier Than You Think With Eric Collett

The Story Engine Podcast

In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with brain health and dementia expert Eric Collett to explore a question I think a lot of us would rather avoid: What if the problems we experience in our brain, energy, focus, and mental health today are warning signs of something deeper? Eric explains why conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s can begin developing decades before obvious symptoms appear, and why things like brain fog, low energy, declining productivity, gut health issues, and memory changes deserve more attention than we often give them. We also unpack...

What If Thinking About Death Is the Key to Living Your Best Life With Karen Salmansohn

The Story Engine Podcast

What if the thing we spend our lives avoiding—death—could actually become one of the most powerful tools for creating a more meaningful life? In this episode of The Story Engine Podcast, I sit down with behavioral change expert and bestselling author Karen Salmansohn to explore why so many ambitious, high-achieving people resist self-help, stay trapped in “beast mode,” and keep telling themselves they’ll finally live the life they want someday. Karen shares her philosophy of moving from the “den of pleasure” into the “laboratory of growth,” embracing emotional diversity, and...

Your Story Is Not Separate From You — How Writing a Book Unlocks a Whole New Level of Leadership with Steven Heumann

The Story Engine Podcast

Most people who want to write a book are thinking about the book. What they don't see coming is what the process does to them. Steven Heumann spent 15 years as a television writer and director before founding Superhuman Creative, a ghostwriting and publishing company that helps leaders tell their stories. In this conversation, we talk about the difference between leading with principles and leading with your story, what it actually means to reach a moment of authenticity (it's not a mindset shift, it's an identity shift), and why the clients who go through his process often describe it as four...

More Episodes

On this episode of The Story Engine Podcast I sit down with Andrew Quebbemann, and we discuss something on the podcast that I haven't stopped thinking about.

"People only think other people die."

Not morbid. Just true. You know people get sick, but it's someone else. You know people get laid off, but not you. You're a safe driver, you eat healthy, you got your shots. So the plan gets pushed to twelve on the top ten list. Every year.

Andrew had a client call him at 58 and say he wanted to retire in two years. Andrew ran the numbers. Second meeting, he had to say it straight: the math doesn't work. Not because the guy didn't have money. Because nobody had mapped where he was actually headed until it was almost too late.

Time is the one thing you can't buy back once it's gone. That's the whole episode.

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